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UNIVERSITY EDUCATION 

Cousidered in its Bearings on the Higher 
Education of Priests. 



A DISCOURSE 



DELIVEREt) BY THE 



nSREI 

Rt. Rev. J. L.'Spalding, D. D. 

Bishop of Peoria, Illinois, 

AT 

The Cathedral, Baltimore, 

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER i6, 1884. 



BALTIMORE: 

Published by John Murphy & Co., 

182 Baltimore Street. 
1884. 



I 

tj 



UNIVERSITY EDUCATION 

Considered in its Bearings on the Higher 
Education of Priests. 



A DISCOURSE 



DELIVERED BY THE 



Rt Rey. J. L. Spalding, D. D 

Bishop of Peoria, Illinois, 

AT 

The Cathedral, Baltimore, 



SUNDAY, NOVEMBER i6, 1884. 




BALTIMORE: 

Published by John Murphy & Co., 

182 Baltimoee Street. 
1884. 



.573 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1884, 

Rt. Rev. J. L. Spaldixg, D. D., 
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 



UiNIVERSlTY EDUCATION 



The subject which I have been asked to treat is the higher edu- 
cation of priests, which I suppose, is the highest education of man, 
since the ideal of the Christian priest is the most exalted, his voca- 
tion the most sublime, his office the most holy, his duties the most 
spiritual,^and his mission, whether we consider its relation to mor- 
ality which is the basis of individual and social welfare, or to 
religion which is the promise and the secret of immortal and god- 
like life, is the most important and the most sacred which can be 
assigned to a human being. 

Religion and education like religion and morality are nearly 
related. Pure religion, indeed, is more than right education, and 
yet it may be said with truth that it is but a part of the best edu- 
cation, for it co-operates with other forces, with climate, custom, 
social conditions and political institutions, to develop and fashion 
the complete man, and the special instruction of teachers, which is 
the narrow meaning of the word, is modified, and to a great extent 
controlled, by these powers which work unseen, and are the vital 
agents that make possible all conscious educational efforts. 

The faith we hold, the laws we obey, the domestic and social 
customs to which our thoughts and loves are harmonized, the cli- 
mate we live in, mould our characters and give to our souls a deeper 
and more lasting tinge than any school, though it were the best. 

My subject, however, does not demand that I consider these 
general and silent agencies by which life is influenced ; but leads 
me to the discussion of the methods by which man, with conscious 

*^ 3 



purpose, seeks to form and instruct his fellow-man ; to the discus- 
sion of the special education which brings art to the aid of nature 
and becomes the auxiliary and guide of the other forces which con- 
tribute to the development of our being. 

In this age when all who think at all turn their thoughts to 
questions of education, it is needless to call attention to the interest 
of the subject, which, like hope, is immortal and fresh as the inno- 
cent face of laughing childhood. 

Is not the school for all men a shrine to which their pilgrim 
thoughts return to catch again the glow and gladness of a world 
wherein they lived by faith and hope and love, when round the 
morning sun of life the golden purple clouds were hanging and 
earth lay hidden in mist beneath which the soul created a new 
paradise ? To the opening mind all things are young and fair, 
and to remember the delight that accompanied the gradual dawn 
of knowledge upon our mental vision, sweet and beautiful as the 
upglowing of day from the bosom of night, is to be forever thank- 
ful for the gracious power of education. And is there not in all 
hearts a deep and abiding yearning for great and noble men, and 
therefore an imperishable interest in the power by which they are 
moulded? When fathers and mothers look upon the fair blossom- 
ing children, that cling to them as the vine wraps its tendrils 
round the spreading bongh, and when their great love fills them 
with ineffable longing to shield these tender souls from the blight- 
ing blasts of a cold and stormy world, and little by little to pre- 
pare them to stand alone and breast the gales of fortune, do they 
not instinctively put their trust in the power of education? 

When at the beginning of the present century, Germany lay 
prostrate at the feet of Napoleon, the wise and the patriotic among 
her children yielded not to despondency, but turned with confi- 
dence to truer methods and systems of education, and assiduous 
teaching and patient waiting finally brought them to Sedan. 

When in the sixteenth century heresy and schism seemed near 
to final victory over the Church, Pope Julius III declared that the 
evils and abuses of the times were the outgrowth of the shameful 



ignorance of the clergy, and that the chief hope of the dawning 
of a brighter day lay in general and thorough ecclesiastical educa- 
tion. And the Catholic leaders, who finally turned back the 
advancing power of Protestantism, re-established the Church in 
half the countries in which it had been overthrown, and converted 
more souls in America and Asia than had been lost in Europe, 
belonged to the greatest educational body the world has ever seen. 
What is history but examples of success through knowledge and 
righteousness and of failure through lack of understanding and of 
virtue ? 

Wherein lies the superiority of civilized races over barbarians 
if not in their greater knowledge and superior strength of char- 
acter ? And what but education has placed in the hands of man 
the thousand natural forces, which he holds as a charioteer his well- 
reined steeds, bidding the winds carry him to distant lands, making 
steam his tireless ever-ready slave, and commanding the lightning 
to speak his words to the ends of the earth? What else than this 
has taught him to map the boundless heavens, to read the foot- 
prints of God in the crust of the earth ages before human beings 
lived, to measure the speed of light, to weigh the imperceptible 
atom, to split up all natural compounds, to create innumerable 
artificial products with which he transforms the world and with a 
grain of powder, marches like a conquering god around the 
globe ? 

What converts the meaningless babbling of the child into 
the stately march of oratorio phrase or the rythmic flow of poetic 
language? What has developed the rude stone and bronze 
implements of savage and barbarous hordes into the miraculous 
machinery which we use? By what power has man been taught 
to carve the shapeless rock into an image of ideal beauty, or with 
it to build his thought into a Temple of God, where the soul 
instinctively prostrates itself in adoration ? 

Is not all this together with whatever else is excellent in human 
works, the result of education, which gives to man a second 



6 

nature with more admirable endowments? And is not religion 
itself a kind of celestial education which trains the soul to godlike 
life? 

No progress in things divine or human is made by man except 
through effort, and effort is the power and the law of education. 
The maxim of the spiritual writers that not to struggle upward 
and onward is to be drawn downward, applies to every phase of 
our life. Whence do we derive strength of soul, but from the 
uplifting of the mind and heart to God which we call prayer? 
To pray is to think, to attend, to hold the mind lovingly to its 
object, and this is what we do when we study. Hence prayer, which 
is the voice of religion, is a part of education, nay, its very soul, 
breathing on all the chords of life, till their thousand dissonances 
meet in rythmic harmony. What is the pulpit but the holiest 
teacher's chair that has been placed upon the earth ? 

And as the presence of a noble character is a more potent influ- 
ence than words, so sacramental communion with Christ is man's 
chief school of faith, of hope and love. There are worthy persons 
who turn, as from an unholy thought, from the emphatic announce- 
ment of the need of the best human qualities for the proper defense 
of the cause of God in the world. Such speech seems to them to 
be vain and unreal, for God is all in all, and man is nothing. But 
in our day it is easier to go astray in the direction of self-annihi- 
lation than in that of self-assertion ; since the common tendency 
now of all false philosophies is pantheistic, and issues iu uncon- 
scious contempt of individual life. If man is but a bubble merg- 
ing forth and re-absorbed, without past or future, then indeed, 
both he and what he seems to do sink into the eternal flow of 
matter and are undeserving of a thought. This certainly is not 
the Christian view, to which man is revealed as a lesser god and 
co-worker wnth the Eternal, whose thought can reach the infinite 
and whose will can oppose that of the Omnipotent. In Christ, 
God co-operates with man for the salvation of the world, and in 
the church man co-operates with God to this same end. The more 



complete the man, the more fit is he to work with God. Even 
bodily disfigurement is looked upon as an obstacle; how much 
more then shall lack of intelligence and want of heart render us 
unworthy of the divine office? I certainly shall never deny that 
love which the Apostle exalts above faith and hope, is higher also 
than knowledge. The light of the mind is as that of the moon — 
fair and soft and soothing, without heat, without the power to call 
forth and nourish life; but the light of the soul, which is love, is 
the sunlight, whose kiss, like a word of God, makes the dead to 
live and clothes the world in strength and beauty. Character is ^ 
more than intellect, love is more than knowledge, religion is more 
than morality, and a great heart brings us closer to God, nearer to 
all goodness than a bright mind. Education is essentially moral, 
and the intellectual qualities themselves, which we seek to develop, 
derive their chief efficacy from underlying ethical qualities upon 
which they rest and from which they receive their energy and the 
power of self-control. Inequality of will is the great cause of 
inequality of mind, and the will is strengthened by the practice 
of virtue as the body by food and exercise. If this is a 
general truth with what special force must it not apply to 
the ministers of a religion, the paramount and ceaseless aim 
of which is to make men holy, so that at times it has almost 
seemed as though the church were indifferent as to whether 
they are learned or beautiful or strong? She pronounces 
no man a doctor, unless he be also a saint, and when I insist that 
the priest shall possess the best mental culture of his age, that 
without this, he fights with broken weapons, speaks with harsh 
voice a language men will neither hear nor understand, teaches 
truths which having not the freshness and the glow of truth, 
neither kindle the heart nor fire the imagination, I do not forget 
that without the moral earnestness which is born of faith and 
purity of life, mere cultivation of mind will not give him power 
to unseal the fountains of living waters which refresh the garden 
of God. The universal harmony is felt by a pure heart better than 



8 

it can be perceived by a keen intellect. To a sinless soul the 
darker side even of life and nature is not wholly dark, and the 
mental difficulties which the existence of evil involves, in no way 
weaken the consciousness of the essential goodness that lies at the 
heart of all things. In the religious, as in the moral world, men 
trust to what we are rather than to what we say, and the teacher 
of spiritual truth is never strong, unless his life and character 
inspire a confidence which arguments alone do not create ; for in 
questions that reach beyond the sphere of sensation, we feel that 
insight is better than reasons, and hence we instinctively prefer the 
testimony of a godlike soul to the conclusions of a cultivated mind: 
and indeed our Blessed Lord ever assumes that the obstacle to the 
perception of divine truth is moral and not intellectual. The pure 
of heart see God : The evil doer loves darkness and shuns the 
light. St. Paul goes even farther and associates mental cultivation 
with a tendency directly opposed to religious faith, which is 
humble. " Knowledge puffeth up." But the words of the Apostle 
should not be stretched beyond his purpose, which is to point to 
pride as a special danger of the intellectual as sensuality is a 
danger of the ignorant. For man to have aught is to run a risk 
and hence to do as little as possible is in the thought of the timid 
a mark of prudence. And indeed if fear be nearer to wisdom than 
courage, then should we fear everything, for danger is everywhere. 
A breath may sow the seed of death; a look may slay the soul. 
In knowledge, in ignorance, in strength, in weakness, in wealth, 
in poverty, in genius, in stupidity, in company, in solitude, in 
innocence itself danger lurks. But God does not abolish life 
that danger may cease to be, and they w^ho put their trust 
in Him will not seek to darken the mind lest knowledge lead 
man astray, but will rather in a righteous cause make the ven- 
ture of all things, as St. Ignatius preferred the hope of saving 
others to the certainty of his own salvation. And may we 
not maintain, since we hold that there is no inappeasable con- 
flict between God and Nature, between the soul and matter, 



between revelation and science, that the apparent antagonism 
lies in our apprehension and not in things themselves, and 
consequently that reconcilement is to be sought for throngh 
the help of thoroughly trained minds? The poet speaks the 
truth — "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.'^ They who 
know but little and imperfectly, see but their knowledge, if so it 
may be called, and walk in innocent unconsciousness of their 
infinite nescience. The narrower the range of our mental vision, 
the greater the obstinacy with which we cling to our opinions; 
and the half-educated, like the weak and the incompetent, are 
often contentious, but whosoever is able to do his work does it and 
finds no time for dispute. He who possesses a disciplined mind, 
and is familiar with the best thoughts that live in the great litera- 
tures, will be the last to attach undue importance to his own 
thinking. A sense of decency and a kind of holy shame will keep 
him far from angry and unprofitable controversy : nor will he mis- 
take a crotchet for a panacea, nor imagine that irritation is enlight- 
enment. The blessings of a cultivated mind are akin to those of 
religion. They are larger liberty, wider life, purer delights and 
a juster sense of the relative values of the means and ends which 
lie within our reach. Knowledge, like religion, leads us away 
from what appears to what is, from what passes to what remains, 
from what flatters the senses to that which speaks to the soul. 
Wisdom and religion converge, as love and knowledge meet in 
God ; and to the wise as to the religious man, no great evil can 
happen. Into prison they both carry the sweet company of their 
thoughts, their faith and hope, and are freer in chains than the 
great in palaces. In death they are in the midst of life, for 
they see that what they know and love is imperishable, nor 
subject even to atomic disintegration. He who lives in the 
presence of truth yearns not for the company of men, but loves 
retirement as a saint loves solitude; and in times like ours, when 
men no longer choose the desert for a dwelling place, the pas- 
sionate desire of intellectual excellence co-operates with reli- 
2 



10 

gioiis faith to guard them against dissipation and to lift them 
above the spirit of the age. The thinker is never lonely as 
he who lives with God is never unhappy. Is not the love 
of excellence, which is the scholar's love, a part of the love of 
of goodness which makes the saint? And are not intellectual 
delights akin to those religion brings? They are pure, they ele- 
vate, they refine, time only increases their charm, and in the 
winter of age, when the body is but the agent of pain, contempla- 
tion still remains like the light of a higher world to tinge with 
beauty the clouds that gather around life's setting. How narrow 
and monotonous is sensation ! how wide and various is thought ! 
They who live in the senses are fettered and ill at ease; they 
who live in the soul are free and joyful. And since the priest, 
unless he be a saint, must have, like other men, some human joy, 
and since he dwells not in the sacred circle of the love of wife and 
children, in which the multitudes find repose and contentment, 
what solace, what refreshment, in the midst of cares and labors, 
shall we offer him? If there be aught for him, that is not 
unworthy or dangerous, except the pleasures of the mind, to me 
it is unknown, and though a well-trained intellect should do no 
more than to enable us to take delight in pure and noble objects, 
it would be a chief help to worthy life. And when the whole 
tendency of our social existence is to draw men out of themselves 
and to make them seek the good of life in what is external, as 
money, display, position, renown, is it not a gain, if while we 
open their minds to the charm of intellectual beauty, we make 
them see that this eager striving for weahh and place is a vulgar 
chase ? And does not the spirit of refinement in thought, in 
speech, in manner, add worth and fairness to him whom it 
inspires, though the motive which preserves him from what is low 
or gross be no higher than a fastidious delicacy and self-respect? 
To deny the moral influence of intellectual culture is as great 
an error as to affirm that it alone is a sufficient safeguard of 
morality. Its tendency unquestionably is to make men gentle. 



11 

amiable, fair-minded, truthful, benevolent, modest, sober. Tt 
curbs ambition and teaches resignation ; chastens the imagination 
and mitigates ferocity; dissuades from duelling because it is bar- 
barous, and from war because it is cruel ; and from persecution 
because it trusts in the prevalence of reason. It seeks to fit the 
mind and the character to the world, to all possible circumstances, 
so that whatever happens we remain ourselves — calm, clear-seeing, 
able to do and to suffer. At great heights, or in the presence of 
irresistible force, as of a mighty waterfall, we grow dizzy; and in 
the same way, in the midst of multitudes, in the eagerness of 
strife, in the whirlwind of passion, equipoise is lost and we cease 
to be ourselves, to become part of an aggregate of forces that 
hurry us on whither we know not. To be able to stand in the 
presence of such power, and to feel its influence and yet not to 
lose self-possession, is to be strong, is, on proper occasion, to be 
great; and the aim of the best education is to teach us the secret 
and the method of this complete self-control ; and in so far it is not 
only moral, but also religious ; though religion walks in a more 
royal road, and bids us love God and trust so absolutely in Him 
that life and death become equal, and all the ways and workings 
of men as the storm to one who on lofty mountain peak, amid the 
blue heavens, with the sunlight around him and the quiet breath- 
ing of the winds, sees far below as in another world, the black 
clouds and lurid lightning flash and hears the roll of distant 
thunder. 

It is far from my thought, it is needless to say, that mental 
cultivation can be made to take the place or do the work of reli- 
gion even in the case of the very few for whom the best discipline 
of mind is possible. My aim is simply to show that the type of 
character which it tends to create is not necessarily at variance 
with religious principle and life, as is, for instance, that of the 
mere worldling, but that it conspires with Christian faith to pro- 
duce, if not the same, at least similar virtues, though its ethical 
influence is comparatively superficial, and the moral qualities which 



12 

it produces lack consistency and the power to withstand the fire 
of the passions. It is enough for my purpose to point out that if 
intellectual ism is often the foe of religious truth, there is no good 
reason why it should not also be its ally. 

No excellence, as I conceive, of whatever kind, is rejected by 
Catholic teaching, and the perfection of the mind is not less divine 
than the perfection of the heart. It is good to know as it is good 
to hope, to believe, to love. A cultivated intellect, an open mind, 
a rich imagination, with correctness of thought, flexibility of view, 
and eloquent expression, are among the noblest endowments of man, 
and though they should serve no other purpose than to embellish life, 
to make it fairer and freer, they would nevertheless be possessions 
without price, for the most nobly useful things are those which 
make life good and beautiful. Like virtue they are their own 
reward, and like mercy they bear a double blessing. It is the fashion 
with many to aifect contempt for men of superior culture, because 
they look upon education as simply a means to tangible ends, and 
think knowledge valuable only when it can be made to serve 
practical purposes. This is a narrow and a false view; for all 
men need the noble and the beautiful, and he who lives without 
an ideal is hardly a man. Our material wants are not the most 
real, for being the most sensible and pressing, and they who create 
or preserve for us models of spiritual and intellectual excellence 
are our greatest benefactors. Which were the greater loss for 
England, to be without Wellington and Nelson, or to be without 
Shakspeare and Milton ? Whatever the answer be, in the one case 
England would suffer, in the other the whole world would feel the 
loss. Though a thoroughly trained intellect is less worthy of 
admiration than a noble character, its power is immeasurably 
greater; for, example can influence but a few and for a short time, 
but when a truth or a sentiment has once found its best expression, 
it becomes a part of literature and like a proverb, is current for- 
evermore, and so the kings of thought become immortal rulers, 
and without their help the godlike deeds of saints and heroes 



13 

would be buried in oblivion. " Words pass/' said Napoleon, 
*' but deeds remain/' The man of action exaggerates the worth 
of action, but the philosopher knows that to act is easy, to think, 
difficult; and that great deeds spring from great thoughts. There 
are words that never grow silent, there are words that liave changed 
the face of the earth, and the warrior's wreath of victory is 
entwined by the Muse's hand. The power of Athens is gone, her 
temples are in ruins, the Acropolis is discrowned, and from Mars' 
Hill no voice thunders now, but the words of Socrates, the great 
deliverer of the mind and the father of intellectual culture, still 
breathe in the thoughts of every cultivated man on earth. The 
glory of Jerusalem has departed, the broken stones of Solomon's 
Temple lie hard by the graves that line the brook of Kedron, and 
from the minaret of Mount Sion, the misbeliever's melanciioly call 
sounds like a wail over a lost world, but the songs of David still 
rise from the whole earth in heavenly concert, upbearing to the 
throne of God the faith and hope and love of countless millions. 
And is not the Blessed Saviour the Eternal Word ? And is not 
the Bible God's word ? And is not the Gospel the Word, which 
like an electric thrill runs to the ends of the world? ^'Currit 
verbum/' says St. Paul, " man lives not on bread alone, but on 
every word that cometh forth from the mouth of God." Nay, 
there is life in all the true and noble thoughts that have blossomed 
in the mind of genius and filled the earth with fragrance and with 
fruit. 

Shall I be told that the intellectual cultivation and discipline, 
which gives to man control of his knowledge, the perfect use of 
his faculties, justness of perception with ease and grace of expression, 
cannot bring serviceable advocacy or defense to the cause of divine 
truth ? What does truth need but to be known ? And since to 
reach the mind and heart of man, it must be clothed in words, 
what is so necessary to it as the garb and vesture, the form and 
color, the warmth and life, which shall so mark it that to be loved 
it need but be seen ? And who shall so clothe it, if not he who has 



14 

the freest, the most flexible, the clearest, the best disciplined mind ? 
In the apostolic age, when the manifestations of miraculous power 
accompanied the announcement of Christian doctrine, the lack of 
the persuasive words of human eloquence was not felt. Let him 
who can drink poison and touch scorpions, and not suffer harm, 
despise the aid of learning; but for us who are not so assisted, no 
cultivation of mind or preparation of heart can be too great, and 
to appear in the garb of a savage were less unseemly than to speak 
the holiest and the highest truths in the barbarous tongue of ignor- 
ance. 

Our way here cannot be doubtful. Either we must hold with 
certain peculiar heretics that learning is a hindrance to the effica- 
cious teachings of religious truth, or denying this, we must hold, 
since mental culture is serviceable, that the best is most serviceable. 

May we not take this for a principle — to believe that God does 
everything, and then to act as though He left everything for us to 
do? Or this: since grace supposes nature, the growth and strength 
of the Church is not wholly independent of the natural endow- 
ments of her ministers? 

As a matter of fact we Catholics are constantly speaking and 
acting upon principles of this kind. We maintain that without a 
proper education our children must lose the faith; and that with- 
out careful moral and mental training no man is likely to become 
a good priest, and all that I further insist upon is that if he is to 
do the best work, he must have the best intellectual discipline. 
In an intellectual age, at least, he cannot be the worthy minister 
of worship, unless he is also the accomplished teacher of truth. In 
vain shall we clothe him in rich symbolic vestments, place him in 
majestic temples, before marble altars, in the midst of solemn 
music, in the dim sober-tinted light, with the great and noble 
looking out upon him, as from a spirit world — in vain shall all 
this be, if when he himself speaks, his words are felt to be but the 
echo of a coarse and empty mind. And hence our enemies would 
gladly leave us the poetry of our worship, would even enter our 



15 

churches to be comforted, to be soothed, to seek the elevation and 
enlargement of thought and sentiment which comes upon us in the 
presence of what is vast, mysterious and sublime, if we would but 
confess that it is only poetry, good and beautiful only as art is 
good and beautiful. The spirit of tlie time, in fact, it seems to me, 
is more and more disposed to grant us everything except the pos- 
session of intellectual truth. That the Catholic Church is a 
marvellous power; that her triumphs have been so enduring and 
so unexpected that only the foolish or the ignorant will predict her 
downfall; that she overcame paganism; that she saved Christianity 
when Rome fell ; that she restrained the ferocity of the barbarians, 
protected the weak, encouraged labor, preserved the classics, main- 
tained the unity and sanctity of marriage, defended the purity and 
dignity of woman, espoused the cause of the oppressed, and in a 
lawless and ignorant age proclaimed the supremacy of right and 
the worth of learning — that to these signal services must be added 
her power to give ease and pleasantness to the social relations of 
men, keeping them equally remote from puritan severity and 
pagan license ; her eye for beauty and grace, which has made her 
the foster-mother of all the arts ; her love of the excellent and the 
noble, which has enabled her to create types of character that are 
immortal ; her practical wisdom, giving her the secret of deal- 
ing with every phase of life, so that her saints are doctors, 
apostles, mystics, philanthropists, artists, poets, kings, beggars, 
warriors, peasants, barbarians, philosophers — all this, if I mis- 
take not, unbelievers even, are more and more willing to con- 
cede. Nor are they slow to express their admiration of the 
strength and majesty of this single power amid the Christian 
nations, which reaches back to the great civilizations that have 
perished, which has preserved its organic unity intact amid the 
social revolutions of two thousand years, and v/hich is acknowl- 
edged still to be the greatest moral force in the world. But un- 
derlying all they say and think, is the assumption that the founda- 
tions of this noble structure are crumbling, that the world of faith 



16 

and thought in which it was upbuilt is become a desert where no 
flower blooms, no living soul is found; that the temple is beauti- 
ful, only as a ruin is beautiful, where owls hoot and bats flit to and 
fro. " There is not a creed, we are told, which is not shaken, nor 
an accredited dogma which is not shown to be questionable; not a 
received tradition which does not threaten to dissolve." 

The conquests of the human mind in the realms of nature have 
produced a world-wide ferment of thought, an intellectual activity 
which is without a parallel: They have increased the power of 
man to an almost incredible degree, have given him control of the 
earth and the seas, have placed within his grasp undreamed-of 
forces, have opened to his view unsuspected mysteries ; they have 
placed him on a new earth and under new heavens, and thrown a 
light never seen before upon the history of his race. As a part of 
this vast development new questions have risen, new theories have 
been broached, new doubts have suggested themselves; and be- 
cause we have changed, all else seems to have changed also. And 
since, underlying all questions, there is found a question of reli- 
gion, the discussion of religious and philosophic problems has, 
in our day, become a social necessity, and the science of criticism, 
together with the physical sciences, has driven the disputants 
upon new and difficult ground, where the battle must be fought, 
and where retreat is not possible. 

As well imagine that society will again take on the form of 
feudalism, as tliat the human mind will return to the point of 
view from which our ancestors looked on nature. 

And this world-view shapes and colors all our thinking, in 
theology as in other sciences, so that truths which were latent have 
come to light, and principles which have long been held find new 
and wider application. 

]N'ever has the defense of religion required so many and such 
excellent qualities of intellect as in the present day. The early 
apologists who contrasted the sublimity and purity of Christian 
faith with a corrupt paganism had not a diflicult task. In the 



17 

Middle Age the intellect of the world was on the side of Christ. 
The controversy which sprang up with the advent of Protestant- 
ism, was biblical and historical, and its criticism was superficial. 
The anti-Christian schools of thought of the eighteenth century 
were literary rather than philosophical, and the objections they 
urged were founded chiefly upon political and social considera- 
tions. In all these discussions the territory in dispute was well 
defined and relatively small. But into what a different world are 
not we thrown ! These earlier explorers sailed upon rivers, whose 
banks were lined by firm-set rocky cliffs, by the overshadowing 
boughs* of primeval forests, with here and there pleasant slopes of 
green where they might lie at rest amid the fragrance of wild 
flowers, but from our Peter's bark we look out upon the dark 
unfathomed seas towards an unknown world whose margin ever 
fades and recedes as we seem to draw near the haven of our desire. 
As in the beginning of the twelfth century, the cry, "God wills 
it'' rang through Europe, and from all her lands armies of mailed 
knights sprang into battle array and turned their faces towards the 
Holy City, resolved to wrench from infidel hands the Sacred 
Tomb of Christ, so now, from her thousand watch towers, 
science sounds her clarion note with quite other intent, urging on 
to the attack of the citadel of God in the heart of man, renewing 
upon lower fields, the war in which immortal spirits contended 
with the Almighty "in dubious battle on the plains of heaven 
and shook his throne." As he jests at scars that never felt a 
wound, so here the lesser knowledge makes the bolder man. Not 
that difficulties should create doubts, or that objections may not 
be answered, or that it is necessary to refute each hypothesis 
that appears and fades like a dissolving view, or to notice each 
unwarrantable inference from unquestioned facts, or that it is 
worth while to address ourselves to minds whose nebulous and 
shifting opinions make it impossible that they should receive 
correct impressions ; but the field upon which attacks upon reli- 
gion are now made is so vast, the confusion of thought into 
3 



18 

which new discoveries and speculations have thrown the minds 
of even educated men is so bewildering, the methods for the 
ascertainment of truth are so tangled and misapplied, the rushing 
on of multitudes to discuss problems which have hitherto been left 
to philosophers, and which they alone can ever rightly enunciate, 
is so stupeiying, that those who have the clearest perception of the 
mental state of the modern world, and who are able to take the 
finest and the most- comprehensive view of the religious, philo- 
sophic and scientific controversies of the day, seem loth to enter 
into a struggle where the ground continually changes, and where 
victory is only partial, and but leads to further contest. It is well 
to remember, also, that in the intellectual arena to attack is easier 
than to defend, and any shallow, incoherent talker or writer can 
propose difficulties which the keenest thinker will find great 
trouble to explain. Since we and our works fall to ruin and pass 
away, we seem instinctively to take the side of those who seek to 
undermine and overthrow systems of thought and belief which 
claim to be indestructible, and the human heart is half a traitor to 
the Church which declares that she is indefectible and infallible. 
Is there not indeed, however we account for it, in all nature, a kind 
of dread and horror of the supernatural, such as one who hides 
within his bosom a secret of dark guilt, feels in the presence of the 
conscience of mankind? And does not this make the world lean 
to the side of those who would eliminate God from nature? 

And yet, since man's heart is the home of contradictions, is it 
not also true to say that he is naturally religious? His faith in 
God is as deep and unwavering as his faith in the testimony of the 
senses, and if there are atheists there are also men who hold that 
all things are unreal and only appear to be ; that the world is but 
a myriad-formed, a myriad-tinted idea, the dream of a substance- 
less dreamer. Not only do we believe in God and in the soul, but 
all that we love, all that we hope for, all that gives to life charm, 
dignity and sacredness, is interpenetrated, perfumed and illumined 
by this faith. If men could be persuaded that ihe unconscious is 



19 

the beginning and the end of all things, what good would have 
been gained ? The light of heaven would fade away and the soul's 
high faith be made a lie; the poor would have no friend and 
the rich no heart; the wicked would be without fear and the 
good witiiout hope; success would be consecrated and death 
alone would remain as the refuge of the unfortunate. Even 
animal indulgence, in sinking out of the moral order, would 
lose its human charm. If then in our day there is wide-spread 
scepticism, a sort of vague feeling that science is undermining 
religion and that the most sacred beliefs are dissolving, the cause 
of this lies not so much in the natural tendencies of the mind and 
heart, as in social conditions, in passing phases of thought, in the 
shifting of the point of view from which men have hitherto been 
accustomed to look on nature, and the continuance and the pro- 
gress of doubt, and consequently of indifference, is, to some extent 
at least, to be ascribed also to the fact, that the most earnest 
believers in God and in Christianity have for now more than a 
century, been less eager to acquire the best philosophic and literary 
cultivation of mind, than others who having lost faith in the 
supernatural seek for compensation in a wider and deeper knowl- 
edge of nature and in the mental culture which enables them to 
enjoy more keenly the high thoughts and fair images which live 
in literature and art. As a well-trained intellect, in argument 
with the unskilful, easily makes the worse appear the better cause, 
so in an age or a country where the best discipline of mind is 
found chiefly among those M'ho are not Christians, or at least not 
Catholics, public opinion will drift away from the Church, until 
the view finally becomes general that whatever she may have been 
in other times, her day is past. Nor will aught external, however 
fair or glorious, secure her against this danger. How often in 
the history of nations and of religions is not outward splendor the 
mark of inward decay? When Rome was free, a simple life suf- 
ficed, but when liberty fled, marble palaces arose : the monarch 
who built Versailles made the scaffold on which French royalty 



20 

perished ; and so a dying faith, like the setting sun, may drape 
itself in glory. The Kingdom of God is within ; there is the 
source of life and strength, without which nor numbers, nor 
wealth, nor stately edifices, nor solemn rites avail. Nor can we 
be certain of men's love when we cease to have influence over 
their thoughts. The proper appeal is to the heart through the 
mind, and even a mother loses half her power when she ceases to 
be the intellectual superior of her children. How then shall the 
heavenly Mother of the soul keep her place in the world, if those 
who speak in her name, mar by imperfect and ignorant utterance 
the celestial harmony of her doctrines? 

Ah ! let us learn to see things as they are. In face of the mod- 
ern world, that which the Catholic priest most needs, after virtue, 
is the best cultivation of mind, which issues in comprehensiveness 
of view, in exactness of perception, in the clear discernment of the 
relations of truths and of the limitations of scientific knowledge, 
in fairness and flexibility of thought, in ease and grace of expres- 
sion, in candour, in reasonableness; the intellectual culture which 
brings the mind into form, gives it the control of its faculties, 
creates the habit of attention and develops firmness of grasp. 
The education of which I speak is expansion and discipline of 
mind rather than learning; and its tendency is not so much to 
form profound dogmatists, or erudite canonists, or acute casuists, as 
to cultivate a habit of mind, which, for want of a better word, 
may be called philosophical, to enlarge the intellect, to strengthen 
and supple its faculties, to enable it to take connected views of 
things and their relations, and to see clear amid the mazes of 
human error and through the mists of human passion. I speak 
of that perfection of the intellect, which, to use the words of Car- 
dinal Newman, "is the clear, calm, accurate vision and compre- 
hension of all things as far as the finite mind can embrace them, 
each in its place and with its own characteristics upon it. It is 
almost prophetic from its knowledge of history; it is almost heart- 
searching from its knowledge of human nature; it has almost 



21 

supernatural charity from its freedom • from littleness and preju- 
dice; it has almost the repose of faith because nothing can startle 
it ; it has almost the beauty and harmony of heavenly contempla- 
tion, so intimate is it with the eternal order of things and the 
music of the spheres.'^ This is, indeed, ideal, but they who be- 
lieve not in ideals were not born to know the real worth of things : 

" Spite of proudest boast 
Reason, best reason is to imperfect man, 
An effort only and a noble aim, — 
A crown — an attribute of sovereign power, 
Still to be courted — never to be won." 

It is plain that education of this kind aims at something quite 
different from the mere imparting of useful knowledge. It takes 
the view that it is good to know, even though knowledge should 
not be a means to wealth or power or any other common aim of 
life. It regards the mind as the organ of truth and trains it for 
its own sake without reference to the exercise of a profession. 
Hence its distinguishing characteristic is that it is liberal and not 
professional. It holds cultivated faculties in higher esteem than 
learning, and it makes use of knowledge to improve the intellect, 
rather than of the intellect to acquire knowledge. Hence, one 
may be a skilful physician, a judicious lawyer, a learned theo- 
logian, and yet be greatly lacking in mental culture. It is a com- 
mon experience to find that professional men are apt to be narrow 
and one-sided. Their mind, like the dyer's hand, is subdued to 
what it works in. They want comprehensiveness of view, flexi- 
bility of thought, openness to light and freedom of mental play. 
They think in grooves, make the rules of their art the measure of 
truth, and their own methods of inquiry the only valid laws of 
reasoning. These same defects may be observed in those who are 
given exclusively to the study of physical science. When they 
sweep the heavens with the telescope, and do not find God, they 
conclude that there is no God. When the soul does not reveal 



22 

itself under the microscope, they argue it does not exist, and since 
there is no thought without nervous movement, they claim the 
brain thinks. 

Now, if it is desirable that those who are charged with the 
teaching and defense of divine truth, should be free from this nar- 
rowness and one-sidedness, this lack of openness to light and free- 
dom of mental play, the education of the priest must be more than 
a professional education ; and he must be sent to a school higher 
and broader than the ecclesiastical seminary, which is simply a 
training college for the practical work of the ministry. The pur- 
pose for which it was instituted is to prepare young men for the 
worthy exercise of the general functions of the priestly office, and 
the good it has done is too great and too manifest to need com- 
mendation. But the ecclesiastical seminary is not a school of 
intellectual culture, either here in America or elsewhere, and to 
imagine that it can become the instrument of intellectual culture 
is to cherish a delusion. It must impart a certain amount of pro- 
fessional knowledge, fit its students to become more or less expert 
catechists, rubricists, and casuists, and its aim is to do this, and 
whatever mental improvement, if any, thence results, is acciden- 
tal. Hence its methods are not such as one would choose who 
desires to open the mind, to give it breadth, flexibility, strength, 
refinement and grace. Its text-books are written often in a bar- 
barous style, the subjects are discussed in a dry and mechanical 
way, and the professor wholly intent upon giving instruction, is 
frequently indifferent as to the manner in which it is imparted, or 
else not possessing himself a really cultivated intellect, he holds 
in slight esteem expansion and refinement of mind, looking upon 
it as at best a mere ornament. I am not offering a criticism upon 
the ecclesiastical seminary, but am simply pointing to the plain 
fact that it is not a school of intellectual culture, and conse- 
quently, if its course were lengthened to five, to six, to eight, 
to ten years, its students would go forth to their work with a 
more thorough professional training, but not with more really cul- 



23 

tivated rainds. The test of intellect is not so much what we know 
as the manner in which it is known; just as in the moral world, 
the important consideration is not what virtues we possess, but the 
completeness with which they are ours. He who really believes 
in God, serves Him, loves Him, is a hero, a saint; whereas he 
who half believes may have a thousand good qualities, but not a 
great character. Knowledge is not education any more than food 
is nutrition; and as one may eat voraciously, and yet remain 
without bodily health or strength, so one may have great learning 
and yet be almost wholly lacking in intellectual cultivation. His 
learning may only oppress and confuse him, be felt as a load, and 
not as a vital principle, which upraises, illumines and beautifies 
the mind; mentally he may still be a boy, in whom memory pre- 
dominates, and wliose intellect is only a receptacle of facts. 
Memory is the least noble of the intellectual faculties, and the 
nearest to animal intelligence, and to know well is, in the eyes of 
a true educator, of quite other importance, than to know much. 
But a memory, more or less well-stored, is nearly all a youth 
carries with him from the college to the seminary, and here he 
enters, as I have already pointed out, upon a course not of intel- 
lectual discipline, but of professional studies, whose object is not 
" to open the mind, to correct it, to refine it, to enable it to know, 
and to digest, master, rule and use its knowledge, to give it power 
over its own faculties, application, flexibility, method, critical 
exactness, sagacity, resource, eloquent expression," but simply to 
impart the requisite skill for the ordinary exercise of the holy 
ministry. Hence it is not surprising that priests, who are zealous, 
earnest, self-sacrificing, who to piety join discretion and good 
sense, rarely possess the intellectual culture of which I am speaking, 
for the simple reason that a university and not a seminary is the 
school in which this kind of education is received. That the 
absence of such trained intellects is a most serious obstacle to the 
progress of the Catholic faith, no thoughtful man will doubt or 
deny. Since the mind is a power, in religion as in every sphere 



24 

of thought and life, the discipline which best develops and perfects 
its faculties will fit it to do its work, whatev^er it may be, in the 
most effective manner. Hence, though the education of which I 
speak does not directly aim at being useful, it is in fact the most 
useful, and prepares better than any other for the business of life. 
It enables a man to master a subject with ease, to fill an office with 
honor, and whatever he does, the mark of completeness and finish 
will be found upon his work. He sees more clearly, judges more 
calmly, reasons more pertinently, speaks more seasonably, than 
other men. The free and full possession of his faculties gives him 
power to turn himself to whatever may be demanded of him, 
whether it be to govern wisely, or to counsel judiciously, or to 
write gracefully, or to plead eloquently. Whatever course in life 
he may take, whatever line of thougiit or investigation he may 
pursue, his intellectual culture will give him superiority over men 
who, with equal or greater talents, lack his education. And he 
possesses withal resources within himself, which in a measure make 
him independent of fortune, and which, when failure comes and 
the world abandons him, remain, like faith, or hope, or a friend, to 
make him forget his misfortunes. 

Of the English universities, with all their shortcomings, Cardi- 
nal Newman says: "At least they can boast of a succession of 
heroes and statesmen, of literary men and philosophers, of men 
conspicuous for great natural virtues, for habits of business, for 
knowledge of life, for practical judgment, for cultivated tastes, for 
accomplishments, who have made England what it is — able to 
subdue the earth, able to domineer over Catholics." It is only in 
a university that all the sciences are brought together, their rela- 
tions adjusted, their provinces assigned. There natural science is 
limited by metaphysics, morality is studied in the light of history, 
language and literature are viewed from the standpoint of eth- 
nology, the criticism, which seeks beauty and not deformity, 
which in the gardens of the mind, takes the honey and leaves the 
poison, is applied to the study of eloquence and poetry ; and over 



2b 

all religion throws the warmth and life of faith and hope, like a 
ray from heaven. The mind thus lives in an atmosphere in 
which the comparison of ideas and truths with one another is 
inevitable, and so it grows, is strengthened, enlarged, refined, 
made pliant, candid, open, equitable. 

When numbers of priests will be able to bring this cultivation 
of intellect to the treatment of religious subjects, then will Catho- 
lic theology again come forth from its isolation in the modern 
world ; then will Catholic truth again irradiate and perfume the 
thoughts and opinions of men ; theh will Catholic doctrines again 
sink into their hearts, and not remain loosely in the mind to be 
thrown aside, as one casts away the out- worn vesture of the body ; 
then will it be felt that the fascination of Christian faith is still 
fresh, supreme, as far above the charm of science, as the joy of a 
poet's soul is above the pleasures of sense. The religious view of 
life must forever remain the true view, since no other explains 
our longings and aspirations, or justifies hope and enthusiasm ; 
and the worship of God in spirit and in truth, which Christ has 
revealed to the world, the religion not of an age or a people, but 
of all times and of the human race, must eternally prevail when 
brought home to us in a language which we understand ; for we 
place the testimony of reason above that of the senses. To the 
eye the sun rises and sets; to the mind it is stationary, and we 
accept, not what is seen, but what is known. Is there need of 
stronger evidence, that the power within, which is our real self, is 
spiritual ? And is it not enough to see clearly to perceive that in 
the struggle of mind with matter, which is the essential form 
of the conflict of spiritualism with materialism, of religion w^ith 
science, the soul, in the end, will be victorious and rest in the 
real world of faith and intuition and not in the pictured world of 
the senses? 

Religion, indeed, like morality, is in the nature of things, and 
Catholic faith is Una's Red Cross Knight, on whose shield are 
old dints of deep wounds and cruel marks of many a bloody field, 
4 



26 

who is assailed by all the powers of earth and of the nether world, 
armed with whatever weapons may hurt the mind or corrupt the 
heart, but whom heavenly Providence rescues from the jaws of 
monsters and leads on to victory. 

But what true believer thinks himself excused from effort, be- 
cause Christ has declared the gates of hell shall not prevail against 
His Church ? Does he not know that though, when we consider 
her whole course through the world, she has triumphed, so as to 
have become the miracle of history, yet has she at many points 
suffered disastrous defeat? Hence, those who love her must be 
vigilant and stand prepared for battle. And in an age when per- 
secution has either died away or lost its harshness, when crying 
abuses have disappeared, when heresy has run its course, and the 
struggle of the world with the Church has become almost wholly 
intellectual, it is not possible, assuredly, that her ministers should 
have too great power of intellect. And consequently it is not possible 
that the bishops, in whose hands the education of priests is placed, 
should have too great a care that they receive the best mental cul- 
ture. And if this be a general truth, with what pertinency does 
it not come home to us here in America, who are the descendants 
of men who, on account of their faith, have for centuries been 
oppressed and thrust back from opportunities of education, and 
who, when persecution and robl)ery had reduced them to ignorance 
and poverty, were forced to hear their religion reproached with 
the crimes of her foes? And now, when at length a iairer day 
has dawned for us in this new world, what can be more natural 
than our eager desire to move out from the valleys of darkness 
towards the hills and mountain tops that are bathed in sunlight? 
What more praiseworthy than the fixed resolve to prove that not 
our faith, but our misfortunes made and kept us inferior. And, 
since we live in the midst of millions who have indeed good will 
towards us, but who still bear the yoke of inherited prejudices, 
and who, because for three hundred years real cultivation of mind 
was denied to Catholics who spoke English, conclude that Prot- 



27 

estantisra is the source of enlightenment, and the Church, the mother 
of ignorance, do not all generous impulses urge us to make this re- 
proach henceforth meaningless? And in what way shall we best 
accomplish this task? Surely not by writing or speaking about 
what the influence of the Church is^ or by pointing to what she has 
done in other ages, but by becoming what we claim her spirit tends 
to make us. Here, if anywhere, the proverb is applicable — verba 
movent, exempla trahunt. As the devotion of American Catholics 
to this country and its free institutions, as shown not on battle- 
fields alone, but in our whole bearing and conduct, convinces all 
but the unreasonable, of the depth and sincerity of our patriotism, 
so when our zeal for intellectual excellence shall have raised up 
men who will take place among the first writers and thinkers of 
their day, their very presence will become the most persuasive of 
arguments to teach the world that no best gift is at war with the 
spirit of Catholic faith, and that, while the humblest mind may 
feel its force, the lofty genius of Augustine, of Dante and of Bos- 
suet, is upborne and strengthened by the splendor of its truth. 
But if we are to be intellectually the equals of others, we must 
have with them equal advantages of education, and so long as we 
look rather to the multiplying of schools aud seminaries than to 
the creation of a real university, our progress will be slow and 
uncertain, because a university is the great ordinary means to the 
best cultivation of mind. The fact that the growth of the Church 
here, like that of the country itself, is chiefly external, a growth 
in wealth and in numbers, makes it the more necessary that we 
bring the most strenuous efforts to improve the gifts of the soul. 
The whole tendency of our social life insures the increase of 
churches, convents, schools, hospitals and asylums; our advance 
in population and in wealth will be counted, from decade to 
decade, by millions, and our worship will approach more and 
more to the pomp and splendor of the full ritual, but this very 
growth makes such demands upon our energies, that we are in 
danger of forgetting higher things, or at least of thinking them 



28 

less urgent. Few men are at once thoughtful and active. The 
man of deeds dwells in the world around him; the thinker lives 
within his mind. Contemplation, in widening the view, makes us 
feel that what even the strongest can do, is lost in the limitless 
expanse of space and time, and the soul is tempted to fall back 
upon itself and to gaze passively upon the course of the world, as 
though the general stream of human events were as little subject 
to man's control as the procession of the seasons. Busy workers, 
on the other hand, having little taste or time for reflection, see but 
the present and what lies close to them, and the energy of their 
doing circumscribes their thinking. 

But the Church needs both the men who act and the men who 
think, and since with us everything pushes to action, wisdom 
demands that we cultivate rather the powers of reflection. And 
this is the duty alike of true patriots and of faithful Catholics. 
All are working to develop our boundless material resources ; let 
a few at least labor to develop man. 'J'he millions are building 
cities, reclaiming wildernesses, and bringing forth from the earth 
its buried treasures; let at least a remnant cherish the ideal, culti- 
vate the beautiful,- and seek to inspire the love of moral and intel- 
lectual excellence. And since we believe that the Church which 
points to heaven is able also to lead the nations in the way of 
civilization and of progress, why should we not desire to see her 
become a beneficent and ennobling influence in the public life of 
our country? She can have no higher temporal mission than to 
be the friend of this great republic, which is God^s best earthly 
gift to His children. If, as English critics complain, our style is 
inflated, it is because we feel the promise of a destiny which trans- 
cends our powers of expression. Whatever fault men may find 
with us, let them not doubt the world-wide significance of our 
life. If we keep ourselves strong and pure, all the peoples of the 
earth shall yet be free; if we fulfil our providential mission, 
national hatred shall give place to the spirit of generous rivalry, 
the people shall become wiser and stronger, society shall grow 



29 

more merciful and just, and the cry of distress shall be felt, like 
the throb of a brother's heart, to the ends of the world. Where is 
the man who does not feel a kind of religious gratitude as he looks 
upon the rise and progress of this nation? Above all, where is 
the Catholic whose heart is not enlarged by such contemplation ? 
Here, almost for the first time in her history, the Church is really 
free. Her worldly position does not overshadow her spiritual 
office, and the State recognizes her autonomy. The monuments 
of her past glory, wrenched from her control, stand not here to 
point, like mocking fingers, to what she has lost. She renews her 
youth, and lifts her brow, as one who not unmindful of the solemn 
mighty past, yet looks with undimmed eye and unfaltering heart 
to a still more glorious future. Who, in such a presence, can 
abate hope, or give heed to despondent counsel, or send regretful 
thoughts to other days and lands? Whoever at any time, in any 
place, might have been sage, saint or hero, may be so here and 
now ; and though he had the heart of Francis, and the mind of 
Augustine, and the courage of Hildebrand, here is work for him 
to do. 

In whatsoever direction we turn our thoughts arguments rush 
in to show the pressing need for us of a center of life and light such 
as a Catholic university would be. Without this we can have no 
hope of entering as a determining force into the living controversies 
of the age; without this it must be an accident if we are repre- 
sented at all in the literature of our country; without this we shall 
lack a point of union to gather up, harmonize and intensify our 
scattered forces ; without this our bishops must remain separated 
and continue to work in random ways; without this the noblest 
souls will look in vain for something larger and broader than a 
local charity to make appeal to their generous hearts; without this 
we shall be able to offer but feeble resistance to the false theories 
and systems of education which deny to the Church a place in the 
school; without this the sons of wealthy Catholics will, in ever 
increasing numbers, be sent to institutions where their faith is 



30 

undermined; without this we shall vainly hope for such treatment 
of religions questions and their relations to the issues and needs of 
the day, as shall arrest public attention and induce Catholics 
themselves to take at least some little notice of the writings of 
Catholics; without this in struggles for reform and contests for 
rights we shall lack the wisdom of best counsel and the courage 
which skilful leaders inspire. We are a small minority in the 
presence of a vast majority; we still bear the disfigurements and 
weaknesses of centuries of persecution and suffering ; we cling to 
an ancient faith in an age when new sciences, discoveries and 
theories fascinate the minds of men and turn their thoughts away 
from the past to the future; we preach a spiritual religion to a 
people whose prodigious wealth and rapid triumphs over nature 
have caused them to exaggerate the value of material progress ; 
we teach the duty of self-denial to a refined and intellectual gener- 
ation, who regard whatever is painful as evil, whatever is diflficult 
as omissible; we insist upon religious obedience to the Church in 
face of a society where children are ceasing to reverence and obey 
even their parents; — if in spite of all this we are to hold our own, 
not to speak of larger hopes, it is plain that we may neglect noth- 
ing which will help us to put forth our full strength. 

I do not, of course pretend that this higher education is all that 
we need, or that, of itself, it is sufficent, but what I claim is that 
it would be a source of strength for us who are in want of help. 
God works, in many ways, through many agencies, and I bow in 
homage to the humblest effort in a righteous cause of the lowliest 
human being. There are diversities of graces, but the same spirit ; 
diversities of ministries, but the same Lord. Numquid omnes 
doctores f asks St. Paul. But since he places teachers by the side 
of apostles and prophets, surely they will teach to best purpose 
who to the humility of faith add the luminousness of knowledge. 
To those who reject the idea of human co-operation in things divine 
I speak not ; but we who believe that we are co-operators with 
Christ cannot think that it is possible to bring to this godlike work 



31 

either too great preparation of heart or too great cultivation of 
mind. Nor must we think lightly even of refinement of thought, 
and speech and behavior, for we know that manners come of morals 
and that morals in turn are born of manners, as the ocean breathes 
forth the clouds, and the clouds fill the ocean. 

Let there be then an American Catholic university, where our 
young men, in the atmosphere of faith and purity, of high think- 
ing and plain living, shall become more intimately conscious of the 
truth of their religion and of the genius of their country, where 
they shall learn the repose and dignity which belong to their 
ancient Catholic descent, and yet not lose the fire which glows in 
the blood of a new people; to which from every part of the land 
our eyes may turn for guidaiuce and encouragement, seeking light 
and self-confidence from men in whom intellectual power is not 
separate from moral purpose; who look to God and His universe 
from bending knees of prayer ; who uphold 

" The cause of Christ and civil liberty 
As one and moving to one glorious end." 

Should such an intellectual centre serve no other purpose than 
to bring together a number of eager-hearted, truth-loving youths, 
what light and heat would not leap forth from the shock of mind 
with mind; what generous rivalries would not spring up; what 
intellectual sympathies, resting on the breast of faith, would not 
become manifest, grouping souls like atoms, to form the substance 
and beauty of a world. 

O solemn groves that lie close to Louvain and to Freiburg, 
whose air is balm and whose murmuring winds sound like the 
voices of saints and sages whispering down the galleries of time, 
what words have ye not heard bursting forth from the strong hearts 
of keen-witted youths, who, titan-like, believed they might storm 
the citadel of God's truth ! How many a one, heavy and despon- 
dent, in the narrow, lonesome path of duty, has remembered you, 
and moved again in unseen worlds, upheld by faith and hope! 



32 

Who has listened to the words of your teachers and not felt the 
truth of the saying of Pope Pius II — that the world holds noth- 
ing more precious or more beautiful than a cultivated intellect? 
The presence of such men invigorates like mountain air, and their 
speech is as refreshing as clear-flowing fountains. To know them 
is to be forever their debtor. The company of a saint is the school 
of saints : a strong character develops strength in others, and a 
Doble mind makes all around him luminous. 

Why may not eight million Catholics upbuild a home for great 
teacherSj for men who, to real learning and cultivation of mind, 
shall add the persuasiveness of easy and eloquent diction, whose 
manifest and indisputable superiority shall put to shame the self- 
conceit of American young men, oi*r most familiar intellectual 
bane and an insuperable obstacle to all improvement — self- 
conceit, which is the beatitude of vulgar characters and shallow 
minds? If our students should find in such an institution but 
one man, who, like Socrates, with ironic questioning, might make 
for them the discovery of the new world of their own ignorance, 
the gain would be great enough. 

Why may we not have a centre of light and truth which will 
raise up before us standards of intellectual excellence, which will 
enable us to see that our so-called educated men are as far from 
being scholars as the makers of our horrible show-bills are from 
being artists, which will teach us that it is not only false, but vul- 
gar to call things by pretentious names; as, for instance, to call a 
politician, a statesman; a declaimer, an orator; or a Latin school, 
a university. 

Ah! surely as to whether an American Catholic university is 
desirable there cannot be two opinions among enlightened men. 
But is it feasible? A true university is one of the noblest founda- 
tions of the great Catholic ages, when faith rose almost to the 
height of creative power, and it were folly in me to maintain that 
such an undertaking is not surrounded by many and great diffi- 
culties. To begin with the material for foundation, money is 



33 

necessary, and this, I am persuaded, we may have. A noble 
cause will find or make generous hearts. Men above all we need, 
for every kind of existence propagates itself only by itself. But 
let us bear in mind that the best teacher is not necessarily or often 
he who knows the most, but he who has most power to determine 
the student to self-activity ; for in the end the mind educates 
itself. As distrust is the mark of a narrow intellect or a bad 
heart, so a readiness to believe in the ability of others is not only 
a characteristic of able men, but it is also the secret charm which 
calls around them helpers and followers. Hence, a strong man, 
who loves his work, is a better educator than a half-hearted pro- 
fessor who carries whole libraries in his head. 

To briug together in familiar and daily life a number of young 
men, chosen for the brightness of their minds and an eager yearn- 
ing for knowledge, is to create an atmosphere of intellectual 
warmth and light, which invigorates and inspires the master, 
while it stimulates his disciples. In such company it will not be 
difficult to form teachers. But will it be possible to find young 
men, who will consent when after years of study they have finally 
reached the priesthood, to continue in a higher institution the 
arduous and confining labors to the end of which they have looked 
as to the beginning of a new life? In other lands such students 
are found and if with us there is a tendency to rush with precipi- 
tancy and insufficient preparation to whatever work we may have 
chosen, this is but a proof of the need of special effiDrts to restrain 
an ardor which springs from weakness and not from strength. 
Haste is a mark of immaturity. He who is certain of himself 
and master of his tools, knows that he is able, and neither hurries 
nor worries but works and waits. The rank weed shoots up in a 
day and as quickly dies, but the long-growing olive tree stands 
from century to century and drops from its gently waving boughs 
ripe fruit through the quiet autumn air. The Church endures 
forever and we American Catholics, in the midst of our rapidly- 
moving and ever-changing society should be the first to learn to 
5 



34 

temper energy with the patient strength which gives the courage 
to toil and wait through a long life, if so we make ourselves 
worthy to speak some fit word or do some needful deed. And to 
whom shall this lesson first be taught if not to the clerics whose 
natural endowments single them out as future leaders of Catholic 
thought and enterprise, and where can this lesson so well be learned 
as in a school whose standard of intellectual excellence shall be the 
highest ? 

While we look, therefore, to the founding of a true university, 
we will begin, as the university of Paris began in the twelfth cen- 
tury, and as the present university of Louvain began fifty years 
ago, with a national school of philosophy and theology, which 
will form the central faculty of a complete educational organism. 
Around this, the other faculties will take their places, in due 
course of time, and so the beginning which we make will grow, 
until like the seed planted in the earth, it shall wear the bloomy 
crown of its own development. 

And though the event be less than our hope, though even 
failure be the outcome, is it not better to fail than not to attempt 
a worthy work which might be ours? Only they who do noth- 
ing derive comfort from the mistakes of others, and the saying 
that a blunder is worse than a crime is doubtless true for those 
who have no other measure of worth and success than the conven- 
tional standards of a superficial public opinion. We at least know : 

" There lives a Judge 
To whose' all-pondering mind, a noble aim 
Faithfully kept is as a noble deed : 
In whose pure sight all virtue doth succeed." 



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